"only 9 more days to 1000"

Everyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I read Runs for Cookies, it's the first blog I started reading before I started my own.  It's also one of the main blogs that helped me get started and keep running.  I probably would never have done any races, ever, if it wasn't for the blogs I follow (although most of the ones I followed when I started no longer post which is sad because when you read someone's thoughts for years and then they disappear, you wonder what happened to them).  Anyway, Katie and her family love squirrels, and she posts about the squirrels they have in their yard.  Plus, a person I worked with (for about 1 month) and am "friends" with on Facebook also posts about her squirrels, so I started watching the squirrels in my backyard.  They are hilarious in their attempts to get to the bird food.  I decided to put out their own food.  They come every morning and make a mess on my deck.  But they are extremely entertaining to watch.  If only I could get them to get a nut out of my hand. . . 

If I can keep the stellar jays away.

The last week or so has been pretty crazy, so there will be a lot of pictures in this post.  Last Thursday was Maddox's birthday.  My sister and her husband came up for dinner, and we hung out for awhile. 

 Maddox loves this costume.  He asked for one, so I thought that would be so perfect for him.  😂

My sister and her husband got Maddox a giant bag of popcorn, it's about halfway gone.

As you know, Father's Day was on Sunday and it also happened to be my parents anniversary, it would have been 51 years.  We didn't want my Dad to be alone, so we arranged to meet him at a rest area on the freeway about halfway between him and my sister and I.  My two sisters from eastern WA also joined us, and Damian was able to go with Asher.  It's the first my dad has seen Asher since February, so it was nice.

Last week Maddox made himself a hammock out of an old firewood carrier and I posted a picture of it on Facebook. 

Well, my Dad saw it and decided to buy Maddox a hammock for his birthday, so it got set up (with a lot of help from big brother) yesterday. 

Yesterday I was feeling ambitious and decided to ask Damian if he wanted to ride his bike while I ran.  Of course that meant that I had to push Asher in the stroller, which is always harder than I think, even on my relatively flat path.  But we did it.

Yesterday was my 600th day running at least one mile a day.  Funny story . . . on day 590 I realized I was close to a "milestone" so the next day when I was talking to a friend I said I was on day 591 and "only have 9 more days till 1000 days of running!"  He laughed at me and told me to check my math.  😂🤣  I've never claimed to be good with numbers.

Finally, I'll leave you with this adorable picture of Asher.  He is soooo stinkin' cute!